


rebuilding is a doing word

by chalahandra



Series: Polyquisition [8]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen, Gladys Cousland is Too Bi For This, Post-Blight, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, let the couslands rest 9:32 dragon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 01:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11703936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chalahandra/pseuds/chalahandra
Summary: The siblings Cousland, moving forward after the Blight.





	rebuilding is a doing word

As much as she would prefer to see everything that Rendon Howe touched burn in fire, Gladys knows that to destroy the furniture would be pointless, because then what would they sleep on? Convincing Fergus of the same point had been far more difficult.

"I don't want to keep anything." He said, one hand knotted in his hair, still dressed in road-dusted plate. She closes her eyes, and counts to ten. 

"I know," Gladys murmurs, and puts a heavily-scarred hand on his arm. "I cried when I found Oren's crib." There's a hitch in her brother's breathing. His hand takes hers. The view through her veil blurs, and when she blinks, tears fall down her cheeks.

"I don't know where they buried her. He killed so many, Maker take him--!" Fergus pulls her into a hug just as she's turning to him, and for the first time in months, Gladys Cousland lets another human hold her.

\---

"Fucking hell, Glad!" If she'd managed to cool Fergus's anger, eating dinner with him stokes it all over again. Rendon Howe had taken only his sharpest knives to her face, but apparently languishing in a filthy dungeon wasn't good for open wounds.

"It's not good, is it?" He's lost all interest in dinner (corned beef, root vegetables), and is staring. Again. Abruptly, he drops his knife and fork, and then his face into his hands. Gladys chews slowly, not willing to stop eating.

When he looks up again, anguish is clearly writ upon Fergus's face.

"I never should have left." Her reaction is immediate, and thunderous.

"Don't you dare say that! You would have been killed too, and then where would I be?" After that, dinner proceeds very quietly.

\---

"I noticed that we don't have any mirrors any more." She glances over her shoulder at Fergus, comb running through short curls.

"I didn't recognise myself. It was... too odd, to look and see a stranger." He hums in a non-committal fashion, before clapping a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm going riding to check for pockets of darkspawn." Gladys exhales slowly, forcing the panic reaction down, down, and away. It's Fergus. No knives here.

"You're taking a group, yes?" It's easy to cover the fear with legitimate sisterly concern. "The Archdemon may be dead, but that doesn't count for much with--"

He squeezes her shoulder, squatting down so he's on her level. There's no bravado in his eyes now, just calm.

"I'm taking a mix of the old and new guard. This is just a scouting mission, Glad. No actual fighting, not if I can help it." The small, solid lump of fear in her belly begins to dissolve. She smiles, just a little.

"Alright. Then be off with you! No need to waste sunlight on my behalf."

\---

It's been two weeks, and it's safe to say that it's been the weirdest two weeks that she's ever experienced. Without the calming influence of Oriana and their mother, the siblings clash repeatedly over everything from the stables to the upkeep of the Alienage.

Neither particularly states that they wish to be the new Teyrn, but Fergus keeps riding the boundaries. She runs the financials past him at night, but they both know that he leaned on Ori a lot for this kind of work.

It's the letter with the Royal seal that does it.

"Do you--"

"I don't want it." The siblings Cousland look at each other for a long, quiet moment. Gladys nods, her hand white-knuckled against the back of the chair. Then she heads to her (father's) office and drafts a replying letter that plainly states that Gladys Elissa Cousland intends to take on the Title of Teyrna of Highever, as is her right by birth, and that Fergus Aedan Cousland renounces his claim to the Title of Teyrn of Highever.

\---

Time goes on. Reconstruction efforts take time, this she knows from the handful of severe winter storms that have ravaged the coast. But reconstucting from a Blight is completely different. She buys herself one luxury: fine silk veils, thin enough to see though, but opaque enough to blur the appearance of her scarred face.

The one thing that Highever does really exceptionally well are their horses. Fereldan Forders, Amaranthine Chargers: they're now the best chance of sourcing the capital needed to repair roads, purchase new breeding stock for the landholders who have lost their herds, and in two cases, completely moving and re-establishing villages with poisoned wells.

But to determine how many they have means travelling through the entire Teyrnir, and there's only one way to do that. West Hill has four that they're willing to part with; Tyrith five. Those are the places with the most. After six weeks of riding madly around the countryside, they have twenty-seven total.

When stabled back at the Castle, even Fergus is impressed. He takes his time inspecting them - checking teeth, hides, hooves. For all that they both had the same education, including with horses, Fergus has always been better at assessing their form.

Dinner is fish, whatever root vegetables are left in the cellars, and a semi-decent bottle of wine. The food doesn't really matter, all it's there to provide lubrication for conversation.

"They look fantastic! That Charger with the three socks, she's gorgeous."

"She's the sweetest, too. She'd definitely be a good horse for a learner. That roan, on the other hand..."

"Feisty?" Gladys giggles, colour running high on her cheeks.

"More like, 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!' " Fergus can't help joining in, and their guffaws echo through the castle corridors.

\---

Denerim is hectic, and still partially demolished. It also somehow smells worse, but that's probably due to the number of dead darkspawn that are still being burned on pyres outside the city walls.

The sixteen Chargers bring a total of just over seven thousand gold, which isn't bad. The Forders bring less than one and a half thousand, all told, but four of those are bought by someone in Warden blue & silver, which is reassuring. 

She meets Queen Anora, which is very different to when she met Queen Anora when she was married. But Mac Tir's daughter doesn't flinch when she removes her veil and curtesys, meeting her gaze evenly.

That cannot be said of a good chunk of the other Banns, who wince and shy away from the wounds inflicted by one of their own. With Fergus at her side, Gladys outlines her plans to get Highever back on its feet and contributing to Ferelden as a whole.

They ask for three thousand gold. It's a hefty chunk by the standards of most there, but Highever is huge. It's larger than Gwaren, but not by much, and there are many, many things that need to be done.

Everyone there is equally surprised when the Queen immediately agrees, instructing her seneschal to fetch the coin immediately. The siblings Cousland bow and curtsy deeply, and Gladys once again lowers her veil. Neither of them notice the slight presence of an elf trailing them away from the palace.

\---

Gladys's room at the Song Inn is smaller than her rom back home, but it's... cosier. She's barely even there, running plans through her head as she brushes her out her drastically shorter hair. So when her supposedly locked door opens, she launches off her bed, lobbing her hairbrush at the intruder.

They dodge it, and it smacks firmly into the chest of -- Alistair Theirin? She freezes. The smaller form pulls back her hood, and there stands Clea Surana, Hero of the Fifth Blight.

\---

Gladys sits cross-legged on the mattress, and takes a heavy pull from the bottle of Ritewine. It's awful, but that's the point. Besides Surana and Theirin, Loghain Mac Tir and Zevran are propping up the walls. Of course they want help. Amaranthine was nearly destroyed entirely, with the Keep suffering massive damage. Fergus had reported that the strongest concentration of darkspawn were around the border they share with them.

"How many could you spare?" She takes a deep breath, scrubs at the vertical scar on her cheek, and mentally runs the numbers.

"Fergus has been training up some people as scouts, but I don't know how many would commit to leaving. Perhaps thirty?" Mac Tir makes a disparaging noise, and she fixes him with her most venomous gaze. "Shut up, traitor."

Surana frowns, tattoos twisting in a way that was deeply fascinating. Perhaps she'd had enough Ritewine, and extends the bottle back to the elf. Surana waves it off, so Gladys waggles it at her.  
"Don't need anymore." The smoked-glass bottle is removed from her hand. "Apart from the scouts, we may get fifty or so trained regulars, but Father sent the bulk to Ostagar with Fergus, and those that are left are a bit leery of leaving when we're still skirmishing with darkspawn and opportunist bandits."

Her gaze slides back over to Mac Tir, who is looking a little chastened. Zevran draws her attention as he moves forward, stopping just beside Surana.

"Bella, I heard you addressing the Queen today. Is Highever not the largest of the, how is it-- Teyrnirs?" Oriana was Antivan. She knows that endearment, and it startles her for a moment to hear it applied to her.

"We are, but we're also sparsely populated. Highever, Tyrith, and West Hill are the biggest towns. Everything else is half-wild, with small villages every now and again. Good for raising hardy horses and hardier crops, not good for supporting a lot of people and through them, soldiers."

\---

They hash out an agreement that night. No one will be made to go, but those that choose to go will have their families supported, and they will receive fresh armour and weaponry. Surana argues that they need an escort to ride through Amaranthine's arling. Fergus disagrees. Surana wins, because one does not turn down the Hero of Fereldan.

\---

Gladys has never seen a Darkspawn attack. She was locked in a dungeon for the majority of the Blight, only emerging after Surana and her companions slew Rendon Howe and opened his dungeons.  
It is a singularly awful experience, she thinks, as she swings her borrowed spear wildly in an effort to keep a wailing Shrieker at bay. It lunges, and she slashes again at its belly.

"Duck!" Someone roars and she drops as another darkspawn throws itself through the space just about her. If she'd been standing, it would have grabbed her. She drops the spear and scrambles away, finally drawing her daggers.

She throws one at the Shrieker and she's relieved to hear it gurgle wetly as it goes down. The one that threw itself at her - taller, with fingers like claws. Block, one, two and there goes its hand. There's a flash of blue, and then there's a solid block of Warden between her and the Darkspawn.

She turns, trusting that Theirin has her back, and lobs another dagger at some kind of short, stocky thing swinging at Fergus. It sticks in its arm and it turns to her as she pulls out her insurance knives.

\---

She cannot stop shaking. She hides it by turning her favourite dagger (short blade, wicked curve to it, perfectly designed for cutting through a man's jugular) over and over through her fingers. This - this is what she would have done, been doing - if. If she'd given more weight to Warden Duncan's words. If she'd not been eyeing off Iona all night. If she'd left Mother weeping over Father's body.

If, if, if.

Her veil was lost in the fight. Her surcoat was ruined with tainted blood, so they burned it with the corpses. Their horses are dead. She lost one of her daggers, and another one snapped when she drove it through a genlock's spine.

Distantly, she recognises this haze as shock. It's the same one that hit her after every session with Rendon. If she stops moving she'll lock up. If she stops moving she'll die. If she stops moving they'll know. They can't know. Not Fergus. Please, Maker, not Fergus.

\---

Surana watches Gladys closely. She knows that thousand-yard stare. Everyone does. Everyone's noticed, too. Even Fergus, and the look on his face is nothing less than anguished. The road up to Vigil's Keep is clear - no one wants to go out at night, and evening is rapidly drawing closer.

Oghren greets them at the gate, gaze passing over the Teyrna. That at least is a blessing in disguise - without the armoured surcoat emblazoned with both the Highever and Cousland crests, Gladys merely resembles yet another battle-worn veteran.

Clea casts her mind back to when they found her, wounds infected and a snarl on her face, deep in Rendon's dungeon. How she'd blinked like a babe when they finally brought her out of the darkness, shocked silent by simple acts of kindness. 

The rest of the group split off, but she and Alistair lead the siblings away from the main barracks. She doesn't think that Gladys had met Nathanial Howe, but it's better to be prudent and avoid it the possibility.

\---

Fergus eventually gives in and goes to bed, curling into a lump. Clea has to leave, in order to liase with the other Wardens. That leaves Gladys and Alistair sitting in front of the fire, Gladys's mabari curled up by her feet.

Alistair keeps a wary eye on Gladys. He's seen that thousand yard stare before, and while he doesn't think she'd do anything rash, it's probably better that he-- oh. She's staring.

"Can I help you, Theirin?" The flickering firelight softens the scars on her face, but the set of her lips is stern.

"N-nothing! It's nothing." And here he is, stuttering like a kid. Again. Maker, you'd think having fought an archdemon in the Blight would have cured him of that.

"Doesn't sound like nothing." But at least she's sounding more normal.

"Trust me, I'm fine." She cocks her head to the side a little, hazel eyes flashing.

"Very well." She stands, and her Mabari wakes up with a start, sniffing around the floor. Alistair levers himself to his feet, because it seems like the thing to do. ...except now Gladys is staring at him. 

"What?" He can feel that damn blush rising up the back of his neck, and hunches his shoulders to try and hide it.

"Are you going to watch me in my sleep?" Is that - is that a flush on her face? No, it's just the firelight. Totally.

"Not unless you want me to." 

There's a long, awkward pause where Alistair screws his eyes shut and begs the flagstones to fall out from underneath him or something. All he can hear is the logs crackling in the grate, and the sound of a dog sniffing.

He gradually opens one eye to see Gladys still standing there, mouth open, and - yeah, no, that's absolutely a blush. Zevran, this is all your fault. Clearly. Somehow.

"I - maybe - thank you? I think?" Her voice is quite a bit higher, and she's absolutely not looking at him anymore. "Uh, where--"

Alistair waves a hand in the vague direction of where Fergus is sleeping. Gladys nods, still very much not making eye contact, and skitters out of the room. He didn't even know that humans could skitter, but she sure did.

Time to go dunk his head in a bucket of well-water and find somewhere to bunk down. And really not think about how nice Gladys looked in the low light.

....damn it.

**Author's Note:**

> As per the Polyquisition world state, Gladys Cousland survives Rendon Howe, but does not become a Warden.


End file.
